Hard-hitting Pirates shut down Cardinals to reach D5 state title game

WESTERVILLE — There were two parades this week.

On Thursday, it was the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and on Friday, it was the hit parade.

Pads were poppin' and licks were being laid when the Wheelersburg Pirates overwhelmed the Cardinal Mooney Cardinals with their physical style of play to win 24-10 in the Ohio Division 5 state semifinal at Westerville Central Stadium.

Wheelersburg improves their record to a perfect 14-0 on the season with the win and will head to Canton to play the Liberty Center Tigers in the state championship game next Saturday night at Tom Benson Stadium.

The Tigers will be making their third-straight appearance in the finals and second-straight year facing a team from Southeast Ohio. Last year, it was Ironton taking down the Tigers 28-17.

For the Pirates, they will be returning to the same place where they clinched the school's second state championship in 2017 when they won 21-14 in a thrilling overtime classic.

But in the meantime, Wheelersburg coach Rob Woodward was all smiles and praise for his seniors as they continued to make play after play to get the team back to Canton.

"I've been talking about our seniors so much and they all showed up again tonight. Elijah Brown running, Braylon Rucker managing the whole field, Kenyon Evans playing defense with big stops. But I could go on and on about all of them."

Wheelersburg's defense again answered the challenge at containing Mooney's speed and being the more physical team on the field. On nearly every drive, a Cardinal player seemed to take a punishing hit from a different defender each time, and especially from their edge defenders.

Afterwards, a bloodied Luke Kouns personified the Pirates tough, smash-mouth defense, but was happy to praise his teammates, and especially the seniors, at getting the team to the finals.

"It feels great. It feels like the hard work paid off. But I couldn't do without these seniors, they showed us good leadership and brought us all the way here and the seniors in the past showed us how to play football. And we did that here tonight."

Woodward felt their defensive adjustments made it possible for his players to make the needed plays on the outside.

"We're able to orchestrate a few things, defensively. We made some adjustments at halftime we knew we liked, how we put some guys in situations. We had a great adjustment this week in practice and thought it was extremely effective."

The Pirates' opening possession didn't look promising, starting at their own 10. But, they methodically drove down the field in 17 plays with Brown and Rucker trade turns running the ball and pushing the Pirates past midfield.

However, the Cardinals appeared as though they had come up with the first stop of the game with Wheelersburg facing a 4th-and-9 at the Mooney 39. But the Pirates dipped into their bag of tricks, as punter Cooper Heimbach took the snap and hit Brew Hanzel in stride for a 26 yard pick up for the first down.

But the drive stalled and Heimbach came on to deliver a 36-yard field goal to put the Pirates out in front 3-0.

The Cardinals would answer in just three plays when running bak Ike Lake took a handoff and pinballed between the tackles and broke free for a 62-yard touchdown run to put Mooney ahead. Jacob Gugliotta added the extra point and Mooney led 7-3 with 3:34 remaining in the opening quarter.

After forcing the Pirates to go three-and-out, the Cardinals appeared to be on their way to extending their lead, driving down to the Wheelersburg 17. But the drive came to a grinding halt for two reasons.

During the drive, Lake went down with an injury on his sixth carry of the game and never returned the rest of the game. However, the second — and most important reason — was the Pirates defense began to show why they had been dominant all season long.

On 3rd-and-10, Vince Gentille dropped back to pass and was flushed out of the pocket by Hunter Henderson and Kouns, forcing a throw into coverage and Kenyon Evans made the interception at around the 10.

The turnover provided the spark the Pirates needed from then on, as defense finished with four interceptions, 3 sacks and a multitude of quarterback hurries by a relentless pass rush.

And as they had done all season, the Pirates turned the takeaway into points.

Another long 11-play, 86-yard drive saw Brown contribute two big runs of 10 and 20 yards. Then Stephen Hall smashed his way in behind the right side of his offensive line for the final 3 yards to cap off the drive. Heimbach's extra point made the score 10-7 at the 4:22 mark.

Late in the second, the Pirates engineered a late drive to add more points before the break.

Starting at their own 27, Rucker broke free on the first play from scrimmage for a 47-yard gain to the Mooney 26. Again, Brown and Rucker exchanged runs to move the ball some more, but could only go as far as the 4.

Heimbach came on again and nailed a chip shot field goal to extend the Pirates lead to 13-7 with 29 seconds left before halftime.

The Cardinals got the ball to begin the second half and moved deep into Wheelersburg territory after a 43-yard run by Tyree Dawson to set Mooney up at the 16. But the Pirate defense came up with another turnover on a pick this time by Hanzel.

Mooney's frustrations continued on the following possession when Jay King made a diving interception at the Cardinal 32.

King's pick turned into points on another field goal from Heimbach, this time from 47-yards to extend the lead to 16-7.

In the fourth, the Cardinals put together their best drive of the game, marching 82 yards in 17 plays to inch closer with a 26-yard field goal from Gugliotta to make the score 16-10 with 7:23 to play.

The score could've gotten closer had it not been for a heads up play by Hanzel on 3rd-and-goal, when tight end John Brenner tried to tip a pass to himself in the back of the end zone and Hanzel was able to disrupt him from completing the circus catch.

Mooney managed to get a stop and get the ball back at their own 15 with 4:32 remaining. But any hopes of making a last-minute comeback were dashed by Wheelersburg's pass rush that forced an intentional grounding and two incompletions. As a result, the Cardinals had to punt the ball back to the Pirates with 4:11 remaining.

Like many times before, the offensive line and backs for the Pirates would be called upon to gain first downs and salt the game away. Brown carried the ball four-straight times to get the Pirates down to the one. Then on 3rd-and-goal, Rucker nosed his way across the goal line to score. Rucker would hit the conversion pass to Landon McGraw to give the final score.

"The offensive line did great. Honestly, Stephen Hall made some excellent blocks down field that allowed us to salt this game away, pick up the first downs, and end the game," said Brown.

But the defense wasn't done yet, as Gabe Campbell put the exclamation point on the victory with the fourth and final interception of the night.

Now with the win in hand, Woodward said he was excited for the team to be able to practice in December.

"I love it. We always talk about we wanna practice when it's hot and practice when it's cold."

Cardinal Mooney 7 0 0 3 = 10

Wheelersburg 3 10 3 8 = 24

First Quarter

Wh — Cooper Heimbach 36 field goal, 5:09.

CM — Ike Lake 62 run (Jacob Gugliotta kick), 3:34.

Second Quarter

Wh — Stephen Hall 3 run (Cooper Heimbach kick), 4:22.

Wh — Cooper Heimbach 21 field goal, 0:29.

Third Quarter

Wh — Cooper Heimbach 47 field goal, 3:54.

Fourth Quarter

CM — Jacob Gugliotta 26 field goal, 7:23.

Wh —  Braylon Rucker 1 run (Landon McGraw pass from Braylon Rucker), 1:36.

———

CM Wh

First Downs 12 16

Rushes-yards 26-127 46-233

Passing yards 92 62

Total yards 219 295

Cmp-Att-Int 8-24-4 5-10-0

Fumbles-lost 0-0 1-0

Penalties-yards 7-65 7-68

Punts-Ave. 3-33.7 4-40.5

———

Individual Leaders

RUSHING — Cardinal Mooney: Ike Lake 6-76 TD, Tyree Dawson 7-54, Brady Desmond 6-5, Tonnie Baddie 2-11, Luke Kollar 1-2, Vince Gentile 4-(-21); Wheelersburg: Elijah Brown 23-116, Braylon Rucker 18-120 TD, Stephen Hall 2-3 TD, Jack Doerr 1-(-1), Team 2-(-5).

PASSING — Cardinal Mooney: Vince Gentile 8-24-4-92; Wheelersburg: Braylon Rucker 3-8-0-16. Cooper Heimbach 1-1-0-26, Landon McGraw 1-1-0-20.

RECEIVING— Cardinal Mooney: John Brenner 2-33, Mike Schiraidi 2-24, Kingston Powell 2-20, Jaie Manningham 2-15; Wheelersburg: Brady Doss 2-9, Brew Hanzel 1-26, Braylon Rucker 1-20, Elijah Brown 1-7.